he goods in which he traded--"think you the
chief will be disposed to chaffer for them? They are in demand for the
doublets which knights wear under their armour."

"Did I not pray you," said Niel Booshalloch, "to say nothing on that
subject?"

"It is the mail shirts I speak of," said Simon--"may I ask if any of
them were made by our celebrated Perth armourer, called Henry of the
Wynd?"

"Thou art more unlucky than before," said Niel, "that man's name is to
Eachin's temper like a whirlwind upon the lake; yet no man knows for
what cause."

"I can guess," thought our glover, but gave no utterance to the thought;
and, having twice lighted on unpleasant subjects of conversation, he
prepared to apply himself, like those around him, to his food, without
starting another topic.

We have said as much of the preparations as may lead the reader to
conclude that the festival, in respect of the quality of the food, was
of the most rude description, consisting chiefly of huge joints of meat,
which were consumed with little respect to the fasting season, although
several of the friars of the island convent graced and hallowed the
board by their presence. The platters were of wood, and so were the
hooped cogues or cups out of which the guests quaffed their liquor, as
also the broth or juice of the meat, which was held a delicacy. There
were also various preparations of milk which were highly esteemed, and
were eaten out of similar vessels. Bread was the scarcest article at the
banquet, but the glover and his patron Niel were served with two small
loaves expressly for their own use. In eating, as, indeed, was then the
case all over Britain, the guests used their knives called skenes, or
the large poniards named dirks, without troubling themselves by the
reflection that they might occasionally have served different or more
fatal purposes.

At the upper end of the table stood a vacant seat, elevated a step or
two above the floor. It was covered with a canopy of hollow boughs and
ivy, and there rested against it a sheathed sword and a folded banner.
This had been the seat of the deceased chieftain, and was left vacant
in honour of him. Eachin occupied a lower chair on the right hand of the
place of honour.

The reader would be greatly mistaken who should follow out this
description by supposing that the guests behaved like a herd of hungry
wolves, rushing upon a feast rarely offered to them. On the contrary,
the Clan Quhele cond